The Goal of My Life (5 page)

“Get out there, son, and show them you are a player. Get out there and nail someone!” Those were his words of advice to me. He was so proud of the fact that his son was going to play an
NHL
game and that he would get to see it.

I didn’t get into the game until the second period. When I finally got my first shift, I darted off the bench and onto the ice, determined to make a huge impression, with my dad’s words still ringing in my ears.

So what did I do? I elbowed Dick Duff in the head eight seconds into my first shift! Off came Duff’s gloves and I was in my first
NHL
fight. We threw a few punches and I managed to wrestle him to the ice. I could have really drilled him, as I had him in a headlock, but I wasn’t a fighter and neither was he. So the referee stepped in and pulled us apart before either one of us did something stupid.

Eight seconds into my
NHL
career and there I was, sitting in the penalty box for seven minutes – two for elbowing and five for fighting. While I was in there, two veteran Leafs players, Eddie Shack and Bobby Baun, skated by, calling me every name in the book and telling me they’d be coming after me the first chance they got. I’m sure my new teammates were wondering just who the heck this Henderson guy was! What a way to make your first impression in the
NHL
.

I was saved that night, however, when Toronto took a penalty while I was in the box; the second my penalty ended, coach Sid Abel motioned me back to the bench to get our power-play unit on the ice. I leaped back over the boards onto the safety of that bench with just as much enthusiasm as I did coming onto the ice for my first
NHL
shift. That was the extent of Paul Henderson’s first contribution to the
NHL
.

The next night we were back in Detroit against the Leafs, and my father wasn’t there – thank goodness! – for my first game in the Olympia. That was another historic building and another thrill, to play a home game in that great old barn. This time, I managed to get on the ice in the first period, although well into it. This time, my “victim” was Frank Mahovlich. Abel told me my job was to check Mahovlich and not let him get away from me, which was
not an easy assignment. I lasted all of maybe ten seconds as Mahovlich got past me quickly on the outside, so I whacked him with a two-hander and down he went. He bounced right back up and came after me enraged, but before I could get into my second
NHL
fight, the linesman stepped in and saved me – to my relief, as I had no desire to fight a very angry Frank Mahovlich. The referee gave me a two-minute penalty for slashing.

Boy, now the Leafs were really ready to kill me! But as soon as the penalty expired, an offside was called and once again Abel called me back to the bench.

“For God’s sake, Henderson, can’t you stay on the ice?” Abel hollered at me. I didn’t see the ice again, so my big weekend
NHL
debut saw me play maybe twenty seconds and take nine minutes in penalties in two games. How is that for making an impact?

I wanted to play in the
NHL
very badly, but after that experience and the following year during my first
NHL
camp, I realized I had a lot of things to work on before I would be ready for full-time duty. There was a huge difference between junior A and the
NHL
, but at least I had gotten a taste of what it was like.

During my first
NHL
training camp with the Detroit Red Wings in September 1963, it was clear to me I still didn’t have enough experience to play in the
NHL
. It was only in my last two seasons of junior A that I had really gotten the chance to play a lot. To make the leap to the
NHL
was really more than I could handle at that time. Detroit had a lot of young and upcoming players at that camp – guys like Pit Martin, Larry Jeffrey, Lowell MacDonald, and Bob Wall. Even though I had a good camp and was probably the
fastest skater there, I was sent down to Pittsburgh. I actually asked them if I could go to the American Hockey League, if you can believe that. They also felt it would be beneficial for me, as I had a lot of things I needed to work on and I was still very young. I needed to get some real playing time with the pros, and it was where I felt – and the Red Wings felt – I should be. I had to get stronger and play smarter to earn my way onto a full-time roster in the
NHL
.

The American Hockey League was a terrific place to learn and play the game. I can’t say enough about my time there. The
AHL
was a very competitive league. In a six-team
NHL
, there were only jobs for about sixty-five forwards, so you know there were a lot of really good players in the
AHL
. Some of them were career minor leaguers, some of them were just a step away from the
NHL
, and the competition for jobs and high quality of play really helped me develop into a better player.

We had a good team in Pittsburgh, and a mostly older one – Pit Martin and I were the only young guys. Vic Stasiuk, who had played with Chicago, Boston, and Detroit for many years and been a member of the Bruins’ famous Uke Line with Jerry Toppazini and Bronco Horvath, was the playing coach, and he played me a lot, in all situations, which really helped me to improve. My linemates certainly helped me also. Winger Yves Locas led the
AHL
that year with forty goals and my centre, Art Stratton, had a league-best sixty-five assists.

The players were great, and they were a tight-knit group. Many of them knew they would never play in the
NHL
, so they just enjoyed their time in a league with long bus drives and long hours socializing after the game.

Veteran players like Hank Ciesla, Pete Geogan, Lou Marcon, Adam Keller, Claude Laforge, Yves Locas, and Art Stratton were such a great help to a young aspiring – but very green – kid like myself. We’d kill time on the road-trip bus listening to players like our wily defenceman, Warren Godfrey, who always had a great story to tell.

The league was full of characters like Godfrey and also full of hard-nosed guys like Don Cherry and Fred Glover. Really solid players like Bep Guidolin, Al Arbour, Willie Marshall, and Bill Sweeney also played in the league. And our general manager in Pittsburgh, Baz Bastien, was always in for a practical joke or two.

Once while we were having a bite to eat and a few beers after the game, I looked over at Baz’s plate and saw an eye staring up at me, giving me quite a shock. Bastien had a glass eye, which I hadn’t known – but of course every player around me was aware of the
GM’S
fake eye. You have to pull one over on the rookie, I guess, and they sure caught me that time!

The time in the
AHL
made me much more prepared for the
NHL
than I would have been without it, so I am grateful to all the veteran players and coaches who helped a young kid adjust to the huge jump from junior to professional hockey.

Life was pretty good in Pittsburgh, and I really enjoyed playing there. The city was a nice place, it was clean, and the people were good, hard-working folks. Eleanor and I rented an apartment and met an older couple named the Dabneys, who were really friendly and helped us adjust to life in a new city. The players in the
AHL
were older and accepting of us, and the league had some great hockey cities, like Hershey and Rochester. The Civic Arena, also known as
the Igloo because of its shape, had just been built, so we had a brand-new place to play in. That arena was better than several of the
NHL
rinks at the time, and we had all the amenities that a big-league team would have.

I would have been happy to stay there all year. I was getting a lot of ice time and it was a positive situation for me. I was called up briefly in November due to some injuries in Detroit, but I really wanted to spend Christmastime in Pittsburgh, since Eleanor and our first daughter, Heather, were there. I didn’t want to be apart from them at that time of year. They agreed, but shortly afterwards I was called up to the
NHL
for good. After thirty-eight games, ten goals, and twenty-four points, my American Hockey League days were over.

I
WISH
I
COULD SAY THAT IT WAS A SEAMLESS
transition to the
NHL
for me. But it wasn’t. In the American Hockey League, if you asked for help, you’d get it. It was a good place for a young player to ask questions and learn all about the game. In the
NHL
, there was no one really helping you. For a kid playing in the league at that time, it was a little intimidating. It was very frustrating in a lot of ways, actually.

Being on the buses for week-long road trips in the minors allowed you to bond with your teammates – and the coaching staff, for that matter. In Detroit, both Eleanor and I weren’t really treated that well by many of the other players or their wives. I wish I didn’t have to say that, but it’s true. Sure, it was exciting to be playing in the bigs, but they really made you feel like an outcast until you proved you belonged. It was a real insiders’ club, and I wasn’t an insider yet. It was not easy to make the
NHL
in those days, and it was just as tough – if not tougher – to stay there. With only six teams,
you were always looking over your shoulder, especially when you first started out. You were always a few bad games away from a demotion to the minors and somebody else taking your job away from you.

NHL
general managers would take advantage of that competition too, to keep you on your toes and to keep salaries down. When the league expanded to twelve teams, things started to change big-time on that front, but until then management had players just where they wanted them, and the players knew that.

Bruce MacGregor was a good friend to both of us, though. He and his wife, Audrey, were great to Eleanor and me when we were first coming into the league. We became fast friends and by our second year in Detroit even decided to live across the river in Windsor, where the MacGregors resided.

You had to watch out when you were on the ice too, as nobody on the other teams was going to make it easy for you. I had only been in the National Hockey League for a couple of weeks when we headed to Boston for a game against the Bruins. I had been working on a breakaway play with Doug Barkley in practice, and it had worked pretty well, so I was anxious to try it in a game.

The play was pretty simple and it took advantage of my speed. He’d fire a pass up through centre ice to me and I’d streak off the wing and quickly get behind the defence, then go right in on goal on a breakaway. I hadn’t scored a goal up until that point, so Barkley told me he’d look for me when we were on the ice together to try the play.

Well, we were in Boston and I felt the time was right to give the play a try. I noticed that the Bruins had called up some old guy from the minors and teamed him with Leo
Boivin, a solid
NHL
defenceman who was also getting up there in years by that point.

“Look at those two old farts out there,” I said to Barkley. “Have an eye out for me out there coming up the centre. I’m sure it’ll work against them.”

Nothing special happened in the first period, and in the second period, Barkley saw me on the ice with Boivin and this other guy. He threw a perfect pass right up the centre to me and I took off, head down, to quickly get behind them for the breakaway.

Bang!
I had no time to react as Boivin crunched me – and knocked me as cold as a mackerel! I mean, he really clocked me. They brought out the stretcher and wheeled me off, the whole deal.

They used to call Leo Boivin the fire hydrant, as he was just a stocky, hard-hitting defenceman with a solid but short build. But I’d thought he might be too old by now, and maybe too slow, to be able to catch me. I’d thought wrong.

I came to in the dressing room and our trainer, Lefty Wilson, had some ammonia packs under my nose, trying to revive me. He looked at me and asked me if I knew what day it was.

“I could care less what day it is,” I replied (or at least that’s what I was told I said – I can’t really remember). “Just tell me, am I still alive?”

It must have taken me four days to get over that hit. I felt it with every fibre of my body. He just caught me with my head down and hit me the way only Leo Boivin could in his prime.

But you know, I learned a lesson from that hit. I never wound up getting hit that hard again because I learned to
keep my head up and be cognizant of who was on the ice at all times. I learned a valuable lesson and applied it – and I also realized that I had better not underestimate an older player ever again, especially a hard hitter like Boivin. Hockey players get hit – it’s just a part of the game, and I took a lot of them over the years – but that Boivin hit just about killed me!

It was a good clean hit, though – players back then had respect for each other.

Another thing about Boston: I had the opportunity to play in a lot of great arenas that held a lot of great memories. But some of those great old arenas didn’t exactly have the best amenities. The worst place to play for an opposing player? That’s an easy question to answer: Boston Garden.

That place was just a joke. You’d walk into the dressing room and there’d be a wooden bench that had to have been an original piece of furniture from when they had opened the place. There was a nail hammered into the wall – that was where you were supposed to hang your clothes.

The floor was solid cement, rock hard. And it wasn’t a very clean floor either, for that matter. The conditions really were atrocious. Then you’d get out to the ice and to the players’ benches and you’d see more benches that must have been there since the place had opened. There would be jackknife marks in the benches too, with “So and so was here” carved right into them! It was unbelievable.

Chicago wasn’t much better, and the old Stadium had those stairs you had to climb up and down, as if you were going into a dungeon. Yes, those old buildings had lots of charm and were great for the fans and atmosphere, but they were hardly great places for visiting teams to play in. When
I see some of the beautiful new arenas in the
NHL
these days and their luxurious dressing rooms, I wonder what today’s players would think about the dressing room the visitors “enjoyed” in the old Boston Garden.